Survivor's Guilt
by lionesseyes13
Summary: After the events in Imperial Commando, Scorch and Vau have an important discussion.Based on Republic Commando books and game. Chapter two focuses on Boss and Vau, and chapter three on Fixer and Vau. Chapter four has Delta talking about Sev and their future.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: This little oneshot is my way of expressing my aggravation that Karen Traviss wrote the first Imperial Commando novel, which really doesn't have much in the way of a plot, and then denies us of a proper conclusion to her series. This provides answers to some of the questions that I had after Imperial Commando, although not all.

Disclaimer: I own nothing pertaining to Star Wars apart from my own interpretations of things.

Reviews: Reviews are the only form of payment that I get for my effort, so please be generous with them. Thanks.

Survival's Guilt

Scorch stared out over the terrain of Mandalore as he absently shed toki peas for the motley crew that everyone had come to refer to as Skirata's clan. He still found it hard to just view the beautiful landscape for what it was, because he still had the mind of a commando even if he had deserted a Galactic standard week ago. That meant that whenever he looked at the mountains and dales of the world all he could see was how easy it would be to conquer or defend those locations. On a whole, though, he was very pleased with Delta's latest career choice. After all, it was nice to be able to sit outside, watching the sunset and helping to prepare supper like a mongrel civvie for once and not to have to worry about his head being blown to all the edges of the galaxy as he did so. He had never imagined that he would experience anything like this in his life, and now that he was he found that he was rather overwhelmed by its very simplicity.

Normally, he wouldn't be outside alone, especially not when his brothers, Jusik, Kad, Vau, and Skirata were all clustered in the living room together, since antisocial behavior was Fixer's forte, not his. However, Fi had been holding court, his eloquence as he offered wisecrack after wisecrack suggesting that being in a coma hadn't destroyed his gift of gab at all.

Scorch knew that he should be glad that Fi had recovered from being brain dead so well, and he was. The only problem with Fi was that he reminded Scorch too much of Sev, and the thought of Sev still caused a lump the size of Alderaan to form in his throat. That was why he couldn't join with the others as they laughed, smiled, rolled their eyes, or just looked less severe as Fi unleashed the full repertoire of his wit upon them.

As Scorch heard steps behind him, he stiffened, but when he realized that it was Vau's distinctive tread, he relaxed somewhat.

"What brings you out here, Scorch?" Vau asked, seating himself beside his former trainee. "I thought it was Fixer who enjoyed being alone."

"I'm resisting the temptation to turn the whole living room into a crater in order to get Fi to close his mouth, Sarge," answered Scorch, trying to keep up his usual good humor so that Vau wouldn't recognize that he was upset about Sev. Vau didn't appreciate weakness of any kind in those he trained, and Scorch wasn't stupid enough to give the older man a reason to thrash him.

"You are an uncivilized pyromaniac." Vau shook his head as though this were a great failing in a squad demolitions expert, and Scorch felt his stomach perform an astonishing array of gymnastic stunts. If there was one thing he had learned under Vau's tutelage, it was not to disappoint his training sergeant. "Besides, Fi isn't that bad, and some of his jokes are even funny."

"I suppose that the only problem I have with Fi is that he reminds me too much of Sev," Scorch admitted, gazing off into the sunset so that Vau wouldn't detect how much the memory of Sev burned him. "Both snipers. Both of them had vats that were obviously spiked. Both crazy, cheeky di'kuts."

As he established as much, Scorch realized with a pang that looking at the sunset wasn't doing the trick of concealing his grief, for the fading sun reminded him of Sev as well. Before Sev had gone MIA so long that he had to be dead, Scorch had never minded the sunset, but now he revolted against it. Watching the muja, crimson, pink, and purple splendor of the sun as it died made him think about how short and glorious Sev's life had been, and how Sev had gone down fighting, just as the sun had. If a mongrel's life was like a day, then a clone's was like the sunset—filled with fire and struggle, and beautiful only to the outside before surrendering entirely to the darkness. Fierfek, though, this was not an airlane that he wanted to be spacing down right now.

He focused on Vau again, as the man observed, raising an eyebrow, "That's odd. I always thought that you had more in common with Fi than Sev did."

"Really, Sarge, what beyond the smashing good looks that we both inherited from Jango do Fi and I have in common?" Scorch's eyes widened, and he was shocked enough by Vau's comment to be momentarily distracted from reflecting on Sev.

"You're both the squad wise guys." Vau shrugged. "You both are the calmest members of your squad and are responsible for boosting your squad's morale."

"Right. I'll have to get together with Fi sometime soon to have a heart-to-heart about how it feels to be the only clones with a sense of humor." Scorch forced himself to smile so that it wouldn't be obvious that he was wondering who boosted the morale of the squad morale booster.

"Both of you construct facades of serenity to hide the turmoil that sometimes fills you." Vau's hard eyes scrutinized him, and Scorch sensed that he hadn't managed to conceal his distress from his former training sergeant. Of course, he had been a fool to imagine that he could. Vau could never be deceived by his commandos, since he had known them all for as long as Scorch could remember. "Both of you tell jokes and smile to hide any pain and vulnerability from others. Both of you flee from everyone else when you can no longer keep the mask up, and quickly resurrect it if someone intrudes on your solitude. Now, Scorch, I want you to explain to me why you fled from us this evening."

"I didn't flee, sir," Scorch mumbled. "Fleeing is for cowards. I made a calculated tactical withdrawal, as Fixer would say, which is for intelligent commandos."

"Explain why you retreated then," Vau pressed on, refusing to be diverted. "What pained you so much?"

"Nothing, sir." Scorch bullied himself into meeting Vau's piercing stare.

"Don't lie to me, Six-Two." Vau's voice had gone dangerously soft, and Scorch flinched inwardly. That tone never boded well. "I am an expert at drawing information from unwilling sources, and I was the one who trained you to resist interrogation. There is nothing that you can hide from me."

"I miss Sev, sir," Scorch confessed, obeying Vau automatically, since it was ingrained in him to comply instantly with that particular tone. If Vau told him to jump in that voice, Scorch wouldn't even bother to ask how high; he would just leap as high as he could and hope that it was high enough. Hardly aware of what he was doing, he shoved a toki pea into his mouth. He chomped down on it for a moment before saying, "This is spicy. It's the sort of food that Sev would have gobbled up if he could get his hands on it, never mind that it would give him indigestion and wind afterwards."

Swallowing hard, he remembered the last time he had mocked Sev for his digestive system's intolerance of spicy foods, and went on, as some damn inside him broke, "On the last anniversary of Geonosis, he was stuffing his face with spiced warra nuts. I told him not to because it gave him indigestion and wind, and I wasn't about to take him over my shoulder and burp him like a baby. All he did was belch out that I'd miss him when he was gone."

"What did you say?" The harsh lines on Vau's face had eased somewhat, and the memory of how Vau hadn't thrashed him for his breakdown on Haurgab gave him the courage to reply honestly.

"I told him to make himself useful and help me out." Scorch had to work hard not to choke over the mountain that had formed in his throat. "That's not what I should have told him, though. I should have told him that I would miss him more than he would ever know when he was gone. That way he would have known how much I cared about him, and how much he meant to the rest of the squad and me. Now, because I am a di'kut, he died not knowing that."

Scorch gazed out into the sunset again, wondering if Sev had ever realized just how much he mattered not only to Scorch and the rest of the squad. He hoped that Sev had, but he couldn't be certain, because he had never had the courage to tell Sev how important Sev was to the whole squad, which was why as soon as Scorch died and joined the overspirit the Mandalorians believed in he would track down Sev's spirit and explain to the squad's psycho just how much he had missed him every minute since he left.

After all, Scorch may have been the squad wise guy, but every good comedian needed a counterpart, and Sev had been the one who had complemented his humor. Where Scorch's wisecracks were light like the day, Sev's had been dark like the night, and Scorch missed Sev as much as the day would miss the night if it suddenly disappeared. Indeed, Scorch reckoned that if the night were to die abruptly, it would not be the biggest shock in galactic history if the day darkened to try to mimic and make up for the absent night, so it was not really so odd that Scorch had become more morbid every day since Sev had been classified as MIA.

"He knew how you and the rest of Delta felt." Vau cut in, his voice unusually husky. "He knew you all since you were boys. He knew what every tone and expression of yours meant. He knew that Boss shows his affection with orders, Fixer shows his by reminding everybody of the rules, and you show yours with banter. When someone knows you that well, they know how you feel about them without needing to be told."

"How do you know all this, Sarge?" Scorch felt his heart lighten somewhat, but he didn't dare place too much faith in this idea while it was so new.

"When I heard that Sev was MIA, I found myself wondering if he recognized how much I cared about him, and that the only reason I was so hard on him was because I wanted to ensure that he would survive," said Vau, sighing.

"He knew that, Sarge," Scorch said. "We all know that. We may not all be blessed with eidetic memories like the Nulls from Bonkers Squad, but we all recall how you told us the first day that everything you did to us from then on was to ensure that we survived even if you didn't. Call us gullible, but we believed you, and you would have succeeded if we hadn't been di'kuts."

"What do you mean, Scorch?" Vau's perpetual frown was firmly etched in place again.

Scorch hesitated, since he didn't want to confess any wrongdoing to Vau, but, then again, if he did, maybe Vau would thrash him for it. If he was punished, Scorch could stop feeling guilty. With that in mind, he burst out, "Etain said that Omega could take out the Separatist cruiser in fifteen minutes, and, because we are easily provoked into competitive displays of our masculinity, we took up that dare. Maybe if we hadn't, Sev would still be here."

"Did you take any risks that you wouldn't have normally?"

"No." Scorch shook his head.

"What about Boss, Fixer, and Sev?"

"Not that I know of." Scorch shook his head again.

"Then the fact that you accepted Etain's challenge doesn't matter," Vau told him crisply.

"But, sir, I don't know for sure that Sev didn't do anything stupid because of the dare." Scorch snatched up another pea and chomped on it, trying to release some of the horrid tension he felt. "After all, he was the squad psycho, and I'm not completely positive that the red markings on his armor were actually paint. Maybe Sev would still be here if we hadn't been so obsessed with kicking Omega's shebs, and with being the first—being the best. Perhaps Sev would still be with us if we had figured out that being the best isn't worth a decicred if you aren't around to enjoy the bragging rights, and that being good enough and alive is better than being the best and dead. You should probably give us a good hiding for that, and make us all feel better."

"I can't give you a good hiding for being as competitive and aggressive as I raised you to be," Vau answered, and silence descended between them as they both contemplated whether Vau's whole approach to training had been flawed, after all.

Then, Scorch muttered, "I wish we hadn't mocked Omega so much about being a broken squad when we were working together on Triple Zero. We thought we were so smart, but we didn't know anything about how it felt to lose a brother, and we thought that we were so amazing that such a thing would never happen to us. Sure, we knew that everyone snuffs it eventually and that clones die sooner than everyone else, but we didn't really think about that. We were so full of ourselves that we felt we could cheat death even as we dished it out to others. Now that we've paid for our hubris, I can't help but wish that I had been the tuition fee instead, Sarge."

"That's survival's guilt talking, Scorch," snapped Vau. "Don't listen to it."

"No, Sarge, it's logic," Scorch insisted. "I'm the squad's weakest link."

"How did you arrive at such a strong conclusion?" Vau arched his eyebrows elegantly.

"Boss is consistently good at everything just like he was on Kamino, which is why you made him our sergeant. Fixer is as skilled a hacker as anyone in the Bonkers Squad, and he helped you invent new close-quarter combat tactics back on Kamino. Sev may have been the squad's resident lunatic, but he was probably the fiercest warrior of us all, and nobody can deny that he was a one man killing machine." Scorch shelled the peas rapidly as he explained. "Then there's me. All I can do is make things go bang."

"That's what you're supposed to do—you're the squad demolitions expert, and, theoretically, you could blow them all up if you wanted to," Vau said.

"Yeah, I'm great at making things go bang as long as you don't mind the occasional singed eyebrow, Sarge," Scorch snorted at the memory of how he had earned his nickname from Vau in a training exercise that had left them both temporarily without eyebrows.

"That ordnance did more than singe my eyebrows, I'll have you know, but that was a mistake, Scorch, and you were a child learning how to be a soldier. You have a right to make a few errors in that case."

"You didn't say that then, sir," Scorch reminded him, closing his eyes as he remembered the lecture Vau had given him for that mishap.

"Of course I didn't." It was Vau's turn to snort. "I wasn't going to raise any of you to be soft like Skirata's bunch."

"Skirata's bunch are soft, all right," Scorch agreed, but he felt more envious than scornful. "The reason that Darman stayed with Niner as an Imperial commando was because he couldn't abandon him like we abandoned Sev."

When Vau did not respond, Scorch continued awkwardly, "I think the worst thing about the whole affair is that I know we should have gone back for him. We should have gone back and tried to save him if we could, or at least tried to find proof that he was dead. We shouldn't have obeyed Yoda's order right away like that and just have claimed comm interference later."

"An army that disobeys orders is a rabble, Scorch." Vau shook his head. "Rabbles tend to die quickly."

Scorch ignored this, as he plunged on, "I should have fought Boss and Fixer harder when they wanted to abandon Sev. I know I could have done it, because all those years on Kamino, I was terrified that you would think that I lacked the proper warrior edge and make me chose to fight either you or one of my brothers. Maybe I never had to make that choice, but I know which one I would have made if I did: I would have picked to fight my brother. That means that I had the ability to fight my brothers and I just didn't want to on Kashyyyk. I would have cared more about avoiding a beating from you than about saving my brother. I think I deserve a shiny medal for the sheer patheticness of that. I may have shouted at Boss and Fixer that I would never forgive them for turning their backs on Sev, but I can. It's myself that I can't forgive."

"You wouldn't have been able to defeat Boss and Fixer in a fistfight," Vau informed him bluntly.

"I know, Sarge," Scorch answered simply. "If I had fought them to the last, though, then I wouldn't have abandoned Sev. Abandonment is a choice, and I was dumb enough to let Boss and Fixer talk me into doing it."

"It wouldn't have done Sev a whit of good, for he would have been left behind anyway."

"It would have made a difference to me," Scorch declared vehemently, sticking out his chin. "If I had fought them, I wouldn't have abandoned him."

"You're being selfish, Scorch." Vau treated him to his most disapproving glower. "You aren't worrying about what would have made a difference to him; you are fretting about what would have mattered to you."

"I don't know that it would have done Sev no good, Sarge," argued Scorch. "Just because we couldn't hear him any more over the comlinks, that doesn't mean he couldn't hear us. That doesn't mean that he couldn't have heard me fight Boss and Fixer to the last to return to him. That doesn't mean that he couldn't have known that at least one of his brothers loved him enough to never abandon him. Instead, because I am a coward, if his comlink still picked us up, his last moments of life must have been the worst of his entire existence. If his comlink still picked up our voices, he would have known that his brothers—the people who loved him most in the galaxy and who should have protected him with their last breath—had abandoned him for a couple of meaningless orders. He must have felt more alone than he had ever felt in his life once he realized that he couldn't rely on his brothers, because no matter what happened in the past at least he could depend on us. That's not fair at all. Sev deserved better than that."

Vau was quiet for several long moments, and then he announced, "You can't break now, Scorch."

"Why not?" Scorch gave a dry chuckle that contained only a fraction of his usual mirth. "Now is an excellent time to go around the twist, since I'm not at war any more, and the odds of my becoming a firework are greatly reduced."

"No, it is not a fine time to go insane," Vau countered testily. "You may not have realized this, but you are the heart of your squad, and if you go crazy, the rest of your squad will go mad as well."

"I doubt it, sir." Scorch shook his head. "If I lapse into depression, I'll probably stop joking around, and, since my jokes drive everyone up two or three walls, my going gaga would most likely have a positive impact on Fixer's and Boss's mental health."

"That's not true." It was Vau's turn to shake his head. "All too often people's words don't reflect what goes on inside them, and all too frequently people don't even know what is going on inside them or how much they care about someone until it is too late. Many beings make disparaging remarks to wise guys without realizing how much the wise guy's jokes help to improve their spirits and keep them calm. The strength and the courage wise guys provide others with often goes unnoticed and unappreciated, as does the intellect it takes to turn serious matters into less terrifying, laughing ones, but I think you deserve to know the truth that wise guys really aren't so different from wise men. Now that you know how much your good cheer and your sense of humor mean to Boss and Fixer, can you abandon them?"

"No, I can't abandon them," Scorch replied immediately, thinking that the answer to his earlier question of who boosted the morale of the morale booster was the callous training sergeant. "If I get depressed that won't magically bring Sev back to life, and now that I know how awful it feels to abandon a brother, I could never do that to Boss or Fixer. Besides, I didn't come here to grieve, and if I died, I wouldn't want my brothers to cry for me so much that they forgot how to be happy as that's a poor tribute to me, so I won't do that to Sev ."

"Why did you come here?" Vau asked, as Scorch finished shelling the peas and they both rose.

"I guess Sev's death made us all realize that we really were mortal and that if we didn't get out, we'd end up dying as slaves in a war that we didn't care about that never seemed to be over even after it was won. We didn't want that." Scorch shrugged. "We wanted to have a little taste of freedom before we died. We wanted to eat real food and not the canteen's idea of it. We wanted to take showers on a regular basis, so that we wouldn't go through life smelling worse than Mird. We wanted to sleep late on comfortable mattresses. That's about as far as we planned it, Sarge, and we figured that we should seize the chance when we got it. When Darman, Niner, and that new clone who was put in their squad disappeared on their mission here, Holy Roly sent us out after them, and we knew that such an opportunity would never come again. After all, since the Spaarti clone who couldn't walk, look at his HUD, and talk at the same time that was supposed to replace Sev got shot, we just had to say we didn't want a new squadmate when Holy Roly asked and disappear here like Darman, Niner, and their Spaarti clone did. I feel a little sorry about tricking Holy Roly, though, since his command style is rather like Skirata's on stilts, and it is a shame that I never got to enjoy the caf and cookies that would have been at briefings next or the commando of the month sequence with a keg of ale as a reward for the most mission-focused man. Of course, I wouldn't have won that, but Boss or Fixer would have, and I would have been able to leech off them."

"Nobody knows how to tell a story like you." Scorch couldn't tell whether Vau was amused or not as they went into dinner. "While we're on the subject of stories, you had best not tell anyone about our conversation. I would rather Skirata think that I brutalize you than coddle you."

"Understood, Sarge." Scorch grinned. "If anyone asks, I'll say you flayed me to within an inch of my life. That will make us both sound so macho."


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: I know that I said this would be a oneshot, but I lied. I was re-reading Order 66 during a blizzard, and this chapter was the result. If people like this, I might try to do something similar from Fixer's perspective. (What can I say? I guess I have a soft spot for Delta squad.)

Responsibility

If Boss had to select a squad psychopath, he would have chosen Sev in a heartbeat, but Sev wasn't around any more, and maybe Boss had unconsciously decided to pick up the slack. He had to be going insane. There could be no other explanation for him standing in the middle of a Mandalorian forest during the middle of a storm with the wind and the icy rain smacking him in the face. Fierfek, he hadn't even worn a helmet to shield him from the worst blasts. He was a crazy dikut. There was no denying that. After all, if he weren't, he would probably be inside and dry along with everyone else.

Luckily, he was dragged away from berating himself by a foul odor wafting toward him in another powerful gust of wind that might have sent a less strong man to his knees. Judging by the rotting smell, Mird the skrill was approaching him, and, since Mird rarely ventured outside without Vau, that meant Vau wasn't inside with those who had some claim to sanity.

Wonderful, Boss giped inwardly. Of all the people he wouldn't want to find him standing like a dikut in a thunderstorm, Vau was ranked above even enemy battle droids from whoever the enemy was supposed to be now that the Separtists had been defeated.

Maybe Vau wouldn't see him. Even as he thought it, he knew it was a wasted hope, and this assessment was proven correct when he heard a stick crack as Vau strode over to him.

"What are you doing out here?" Vau demanded as he reached Boss.

"Getting some fresh air, sir," Boss answered immediately, and then added, deadpan, "Mird isn't helping much."

"Mird does not smell nearly as much as everybody claims he does," Vau sniffed. "Besides, if you think that a storm is the best time to get fresh air, I think I have always given you far more credit for intelligence than you deserve."

"It's peaceful out here now, sir." Boss shrugged.

"You have an odd definiton of 'peaceful.'" Vau's lip curled. "Most sentients do not classify almost being swept up in a strong blast of wind as peaceful."

"Most sentients aren't elite commandos, either," pointed out Boss. Most sentients hadn't had a gun placed in their hands as soon as they could toddle around. Most sentients hadn't participated in live fire exercises when they were five. Most sentients hadn't faught their first real battle at the age of ten. Most sentients weren't born and bred to be perfect. Most sentients didn't fear failure as compulsively as Boss did. Most sentients hadn't killed. Most sentients hadn't lost a brother in battle. Most sentients hadn't been bred to fight someone else's war. Most sentients would have cracked up under a quarter of the pressure that he had endured in his life, and Boss wondered if maybe it wasn't such a surprise that he was finally going around the bend. Perhaps this had all been some sick joke devised by someone to see just how much it would take a deluxe edition of humanity to snap. "Anywhere that I'm not likely to be blown up is peaceful enough for me, sir."

"A very pragmatic if pessimistic view," Vau commented.

"I never really used to like the wind, though," Boss confessed after a moment of awkward silence. "Sev did, though, and that's probably why I enjoy it now. When we were in basic training on Kamino, he loved the powerful winds that we faced during outdoor exercises. He saw it as a challenge, and challenges made him feel alive, because he, more than anyone thrived off of the adrenaline rush provided by being in danger, and he enjoyed running against the wind. Thinking about that makes me remember all of our training exercises as though they happened yesterday, even though they really occurred almost a lifetime ago. I remember how we used to convince ourselves that we were invincible. I remember how Scorch, Sev, and I whispered to each other in our dorm late at night while Fixer tried to hack into the Kaminoan mainframe before you had the data terminal removed from our room. I remember all the obstacles that we surived in training together, and I remember how we longed to be the best. Looking back at all that, I can't help but wish that I didn't know now what I didn't know then. I wish we were all still that young and that strong, so that we could run against the wind together just one more time."

"You are still young and strong, Boss," Vau told him in a clipped voice. "Biologically, you are around twenty-six years old, and you are still in shape. You don't get to call yourself old until you can hear your knees creak when you walk. Until then, you are just being melodramatic, and I despise melodrama."

Reflexively, Boss straightened his spine, because, even after all these years, he was as terrified of displeasing Vau as he had been during his training. Yet, he couldn't stop himself from protesting, "I feel older than that, though, sir. I feel battered and worn out, and I have ever since Sev died. That's part of the reason why I came here. I just couldn't keep living to fight and fighting to live like we used to. I knew it would kill me, and I didn't want to die yet."

"Standing firm against the wind is just your way of showing that you still have some fight left in you, then?" Vau arched an eyebrow at him, and Boss could not determine what was going through his former training sergeant's mind.

"Maybe that's a part of it," Boss muttered. "That isn't all of it, though, sir. The truth is that when the wind roars like this, I feel connected to Sev. When I stand outside in a windstrom like this, I can tell myself that he is still running against the wind somewhere, and, since I don't know for sure that he is dead and can't perform the proper rites as a result, this is the best that I can do to commemorate him. I hope that if I stand out here and think about what Sev went through with us, the wind will somehow carry a message to him. It's sentimental, and I've been scoffing at sentimental ever since I could draw breath almost as much as Sev, but sometimes sentimental is all you have left."

Boss expected a cutting remark, and braced himself for it, but all Vau said was, "Have you discussed this with the rest of Delta?"

"No, Sarge." Boss shook his head rapidly, trying and most likely failing to conceal his amazement that Vau would pose such a question. "What would be the point of doing so? Fixer is an able soldier and second-in-command, but he has the emotional range of the vibroblades he is so obsessed with. If I tried to have a real conversation with him about what happened to Sev, he would probably just resort to two word responses while tapping away at a datapad. As for Scroch, I tried talking to him about it once. I promised him on the way back from Kashyyykk that we would return and find Sev, but he just snorted and replied sarcastically. Sarcasm isn't typical of Scorch, but he has been falling into it more and more since we lost contact with Sev, and, after he rebuffed me that first time, I can't bear the idea of breaching the subject with him again. I know that he blames me for what happened to Sev, and that's something I can't face right now."

"Not long ago, I spoke with Scorch about what happened to Sev, and I got the distinct impression that he blames himself more than he blames you or Fixer," Vau observed.

"That can't be right, sir," Boss dismissed this. "He said himself that he would never forgive either of us for abandoning Sev."

"People say all sorts of things that they don't necessarily mean in the heat of anger and in the heat of a battle," countered Vau. "With Sev gone, Scorch can't afford to block out you and Fixer forever, and he knows that."

"It would still be difficult to talk to him because I blame myself for leaving Sev behind," grunted Boss, feeling like hearing that Scorch didn't fault him for what happened to Sev wasn't much of a reprievie, since he couldn't stop blaming himself. It didn't matter if Scorch thought he was responsible, since Boss knew that it was his fault that Sev was MIA and probably would be forever more. "I was in charge, and I made the decision to leave Sev."

"You had your orders," Vau reminded him, his tone as dispassionate as ever.

"Everyone thinks I should have told our advisor in graphic terms where he could stuff his orders, sir," muttered Boss. "In hindsight, I'm inclined to agree with them. Orders aren't more improtant than a brother's life, and anyone who thinks that they are has been smoking hookah too long."

"It's standard operating procedure to place finishing the mission above getting your whole squad out alive," Vau stated, his face still expressionless.

"We'd already achieved our objective, Sarge." Boss shook his head grimly. "We should have gone back for Sev. Maybe we couldn't have rescued him, but we owed it to him to at least try. For days after, I couldn't recall why exactly I chose not to go after him, but now I think I know why—I decided not to go back for him because I was too fond of our reputation as the best special ops squad. I must have thought that disobeying orders for purely sentimental reasons would make us be seen as weaker back at HQ. Ever since I was a boy, I could never stand being anything less than the best, because being anything less than that meant failure. My reputation meant more to me than Sev's life. That makes me a failure as a leader, so, in a way, my fear of failure resulted in my ultimate failure."

"Don't psychoanalyze yourself, Three-Eight," commanded Vau. "Whenever you do that, you lose, and, besides, if you were to obsessed with being the best or were too afraid of failure, that is probably a byproduct of errors in my training methods."

"You've been hanging around with Skirata too long if you think that there are any flaws in your training approach, sir," Boss argued, stunned by the very notion that the giant of his childhood could ever make a mistake in anything pertaining to being a warrior, including raising fighters as hard and as focused on survival as he was. "The special ops squads trained by Mandalorians have the highest survial rates, and, of them, the squads trained by you lost the fewest members. That means that you were the most successful commando instructor."

"I am if we assume that survival ratios are the most reliable method of determining an instructor's success." Vau sighed heavily.

"What else could we judge by, Sarge?" Boss asked. "Every clone commando who hasn't got rocks rolling around in his head thinks that his training sergeant was the best, because the Kaminoans made us loyal soldiers if they made us nothing else. As such, survival statistics are really the only reliable method of finding out who was the best teacher. All the rest is just subjective, sentimental osik. I know that fortune favored me the day my batch was assigned to you for training. It was you that tough enough to survive. It was you who showed me how to be strong. It was you who taught me how to look out for myself and my brothers on the battlefield. I learned from you how not to crumble under pressure that would break most men, and it was you who taught me enough about being a Mandalorian to save me from being a dead man. You saved me and made me who I am today, because everything I have ever done in my life has been an attempt to live up to you. Any shortcomings that I have are my fault, and not yours. I know this because you taught me to be responsible and to not blame my screwups on others. I chose to leave Sev behind, and I take full responsibility for that. Fixer and Scorch can put all the blame on me if they want to because I was in charge, and I will accept their blame and mine for what happened."

"Very well, then." To Boss' surprise, Vau actually stretched out a hand and slapped his former trainee on the shoulder. "While you blame yourself, keep in mind, though, that the reason I selected you to be leader of your squad back on Kamino was because you continually did the best on your training exercises. I haven't regretted my decision since, and Delta would not have been as successful if you hadn't been a good sergeant. Every leader makes decisions that they would reverse if they could go back in time, and every sergeant loses some soldiers. It is unavoidable fact,and it is not wise to get torn up over it. Learn from your mistakes, Boss, and then move on."

"Yes, Sarge." Boss felt his lips quirking upwards slightly. "Sev would hate me if I didn't get a move on, after all. He was never a very patient man, you know."

"Oh, I know," Vau snorted, as they both started to make their way out of the forest and back toward the indoors where they would be able to dry off. "I was forever wondering if he had a mental aberration when I was training him, but the Kaminoans never were able to find anything in his brain that indicated that he was insane."

"They definitely didn't look hard enough then," said Boss. "Sev was a bloodthirsty psychopath, and he wasn't lying when he said that the best way to handle him was to show him the enemy and get out of his path so he could shoot. That didn't make him a bad person or brother, but it sure made him a nutcase."


	3. Chapter 3

Purged

When Fixer crept out of his bed at dawn in what he mentally termed a silent self-extraction, managing not to awken either of his two remaining squadmates whom he shared a room with, and made his way down to the monumment Skirata had constructed for the clones who had died during the war between the Republic and the Separatists, he had assumed that it would be deserted. He certainly hadn't thought that he would find his former training sergeant standing there, staring blankly at the names of the three commandos he had trained who had perished on Geonosis.

Uncomfortable at the idea of human grief and even more discomfited at the notion of it existing in Vau, Fixer pivoted and started to retreat, confident that his prensence alone would be an intrusion on something so private that it would be indecent for anyone to witness.

He had believed that Vau was so engrossed in his own musings that he hadn't even noticed Fixer approaching. However, he was proven wrong when Vau called after him, "Come join me."

Reflexively, Fixer obeyed as rapidly and as automatically as he complied with every other order issue to him.

"Your Sev isn't listed here," Vau told Fixer as he reached him.

"Affirmative, sir," responded Fixer. "There are dozens of Sevs listed, though. They won't mind if I address them in my head as if they were my Sev. If there is nothing after death, then neither they nor my Sev will ever know that I tried to communicate like this, but I will feel better at least. If there is an afterlife, then my Sev might be able to hear my thoughts somehow, and the other Sevs won't mind, because they probably enjoy hearing someone employ their squad nickname. Most clones do."

"You don't," Vau remarked.

"No." Fixer shook his head, discovering that he was in a rare talkative mood. "The Kaminoans elected to designate us with numbers and not names to make us essentially human droids. I embraced my identity as a human droid with my by-the-book methods and my preference for my number instead of my nickname, acting as if having a preference at all wasn't a sign of being fully sentient. I thought that if I embraced my idenity as a flesh droid that would make what was done to us all less horrible."

As he established as much, he felt his throat constrict as he contemplated Sev. He wondered if Sev would have relished shooting so much if he hadn't had a gun placed in his hand when he was two. He wondered if Sev would have been as certifiably insane if he had been born naturally instead of been a product of genetic tinkering and a need for a slave army. He wondered if Sev had been raised by a normal family if he would have spent his life counting his blessings instead of counting his kills.

Oh, he realized that Sev had been dangerous, deadly, and deviant, but every clone was to some degree. That's what resulted from tampering with people's DNA, forcing them to mature at twice the normal rate, and training them from birth to be the greatest warriors the galaxy had ever seen. When you ruined the natural order of things, you got abnormalities like the clones. You couldn't fault the aberrations themselves. No, you had to blame the beings who had created them.

Maybe it was because Fixer knew he was born a deviant of nature that he was so obsessed with rules and regulations. Perhaps he loved them so much because he thought that they would make his life less complicated and offer predicatble results. Maybe to rules simplified everything about the abnormal human experience that had been thrust on him when he had been decanted, and perhaps that simplicity was the best he could expect from his brief, artificial life.

"I wish that our Sev was listed here, though," Fixer muttered before he could halt himself. If he could just classify Sev as dead, at least he would have order and closure. Right now, Sev couldn't be labeled as offically dead, so he was like the squad ghost where once he had been the squad psycho, and Fixer had never even believed in ghosts before Sev had gone MIA on Kashyyyk. The mission to Kashyyyk had upset the order that Fixer had worked so hard to implement in his life, and maybe the lack of closure order that he had to contend with was his punishment for abandoning Sev.

"MIA is better than KIA," said Vau, as grim as ever.

"Sir, I'm confident that Sev was KIA," Fixer replied. "We just don't have a body to prove it, because we received orders to clear out and we did as instructed."

"I went to Kashyyyk after Sev was classified as MIA, and I could find nothing," Vau grunted. "The trail had gone cold."

"At least you tried to find him, sir," commented Fixer. "We didn't. We just obeyed our orders like perfect little flesh droids. I always thought that following regulations would be our salvation, but instead that was the death of Sev."

Biting his lip, he observed inwardly that he should have seconded Scorch when Scorch had wanted to return to Sev. If he had, then Boss would have agreed to return, and all their lives would have been so different. If he had, then Scorch and Sev would still be holding their never-ending stupid competition to see who could accumulate more kills. If he had, then Scorch and Sev would still continue to fill the helmet comlinks with their pointless banter. If he had, then Delta would be able to sleep at night.

Gazing at the rising sun, he remembered how Sev had loved the dawn during training, because it had heralded a new day in Sev could shoot more things. Dawns on Kamino had not been very spectacular, filled as they were with pelting rain whipped in every direction by the strong winds, flashing lightning, and a weak sun struggling to shine through the gray. If he had to assign each member of the squad an element, he would have named himself as the steady and ordinary rain. He would have classified Boss as the relentless and commanding wind. Scorch would be the blazing yellow sun struggling to shine its light through the clouds. Sev would have been the lightning—swift, accurate, lethal, and gone from existence in an eyeblink.

"You did what you thought was right," Vau pointed out.

"You should be advised that I thought incorrectly, sir," countered Fixer stiffly.

"Skirata thinks that Uthan is getting close to discovering a cure for what the Nulls delicately refer to as your premature exit from this life," Vau informed him, apparently deciding it was a tactful time to change the subject.

"With all due respect, sir, that's no good," muttered Fixer.

"What was that?" Vau arched an eyebrow in his direction.

"In my opinion, Skirata shouldn't be having her fiddle around with our DNA like the Kaminoans did," Fixer clarified. "We are aberrations—affronts to the natural order of things. He should let us die when we were designed to. It's for the best."

"Forty--" Vau began, but Fixer cut him off.

"You may call me Fixer, sir, since I'm not in the army anymore, and, thus, my former designation is no longer truly applicable," he interrupted, ruminating on the fact that he had lost hiw whole identity when he deserted from the Imperials.

"Fixer, then." Vau bowed his head in acknowledgement."Skirata and I rarely see eye to eye on anything from what hue the sky is on a particular day up, but we both agree that the aiwha bait—to use his term—are the real freaks of nature for doing what they did when they produced you."

"I am aware, sir, that the Kaminoans were insane to tamper with our genes as they did, but when they did that, they set into motion a chain of events that couldn't be stopped that made us deviants as well. Now we can never be normal, and any attempts to make us so will just be met with failure. Some actions can never be reversed, and some wrongs can never be made right."

"You won't be deviant any more if Skirata can discover the cure for your rapid aging," insisted Vau. "That can't change the past, but it can alter the future."

"Negative, sir. We'll still be aberrations." Fixer shook his head. "We aren't normal, and it's a delusion to believe that we ever could be. We are meant to be soldiers. It is our purpose in life, and when we aren't fighting a war, we are listless and miserable. That's why Boss has been roaming pointlessly around the homestead ever since we got here, and that why Scorch's jokes are getting lamer by the day. We were meant to die in battle, as uncomplaining as always, and the kindest thing anyone can do for us is to let us die our premature deaths. I can feel myself slowing down already, and I don't mind. I've done more in thirteen years than more beings do in seventy."

"The aging you feel would slow down if Skirata found his cure," Vau persisted.

"With all due respect, I don't want him to find his cure, sir." Again, Fixer shook his head. "If he finds his cure, it can be used by geneticists like the Kaminoans to create an army of people that could reach maturity twice as rapidly as normal humans and then when they reach adulthood, the aging process could be made normal again with Skirata's antidote. Then, we would have soldiers who had to serve twice as long as us who were also born and bred to die in someone else's war."

"Skirata says he would destroy the knowledge once he had distributed the cure to every clone who wanted it."

"Sir, my job is to uncover information that sentients want to keep hidden. I know that no knowledge can be concealed once it has been used," reasoned Fixer. "The best way to ensure that nobody has to suffer a life as short, brutal, and artifical as we did is to just let us die without a fuss. Then, we stand a chance of being forgotten, we can be purged, and order will be restored."

"You must do what you deem best, Fixer. Refuse the cure if you want to," sighed Vau after a long pause. "I am a mercenary, and I took the job of training you boys for the credits. Learning after Order 66 went down that my men were Jango's final revenge on the Jedi was just icing on the uj cake. I never really thought that I would come to care about you boys at all, but I did even if I never became a sentimental mush like Skirata. When I saw all of you arrayed before me for the first time, I felt the odd, overwhelming compulsion to protect you lads. That's why I swore to you all that everything that I did from that moment on was intended to make you strong enough to surive. At that point, all I wanted was for you boys to live as long as your abbreviated lifespans would allow. It was only after our experiences on Triple Zero that my objectives changed. I saw how Omega longed for the civilian life that had been denied them since they were decanted, and I suddenly wanted to give my men a choice. I wanted them to have an opportunity to leave the army if they wished. The aiwha bait had made you all slaves when they robbed you of a chance to choose, and I wanted to make you free by giving you all a chance to leave if you wanted it. That's why I asked for you and the rest of Deltato help me steal from my family vault on Kamino. I wanted to make a generous donation to Skirata's clone welfare agency."

"You should be advised, sir, that Skirata perceives himself as the buir of every clone," Fixer remarked. "He would have helped any clone desert that requested his assistance."

"That's not the point," snapped Vau. "Fixer, I don't want you to be in Skirata's debt, nor do I want you or him thinking for a moment that I can't look after my own men."

"I wasn't questioning your authority, sir," Fixer assured him, his survival instincts as honed as ever.

"My authority isn't the point, either." Now it was Vau's turn to shake his head. "The point is that I went to a lot of trouble to ensure that you and your brothers had the right to choose that you were deprived of so many years ago when the Kaminoans created you in vats. You had the chance to desert, and you and the rest of Delta chose to seize the opportunity. Now, you have the opportunity to choose whether you want a normal lifespan or not."

"You think that I should choose to take the antidote once Uthan discovers it, don't you, sir?" Fixer demanded, eyeing Vau closely.

Again, Vau was silent for several beats before he admitted, "I won't pretend that in many ways you men of Delta have become what Omega and the Nulls are to Skirata. I won't say that you aren't the Delta that I am closest to thanks to our shared interest in tech. I won't pretend that I wasn't happy in my own non-demonstrative way to see you and the rest of Delta show up here. I won't pretend that it wouldn't be nice to have you around here for many more years to come. However, I won't pretend that those are my desires. I won't pretend that I know what is best for you, and I won't deny you the opportunity to choose your fate that this whole thing has been all about. You are a grown man, and you have the right to choose your own destiny. That is all I want for you. I want you to choose your own fate because you should be nobody's victim and nobody's fool. When you make your decision, just keep in mind that, as you said, some things can't be reversed, and death is certainly among them."

His brain going into sensory overload at Vau's confession of true emotion, Fixer could only stammer, "I'll—I'll have to think about what you've said, sir."

"You don't have to decide immediately." Vau shrugged. "The cure hasn't even been discovered yet."

"Affirmative, sir." Fixer nodded, and then found himself murmuring, "I wish Sev had gotten to choose. I know that someone who killed so many sentients that he lost count of them sometimes and who was one of the sharpest snipers in the galaxy shouldn't really be classified as a victim especially if that is one of the last things he would want to be callee, but I still regard him as such."

"Honor him with your choice then, whatever it turns out to be," Vau told him.

"I'll choose whatever Boss and Scorch do, then," Fixer declared after a few seconds. "I'm never abandoning my brothers again. Brotherhood is the only order I care about now, and I don't think that is so abnormal, after all."


	4. Chapter 4

Burdens

It was late at night, and the room that the surviving members of Delta Squad all shared was pitch black. It was also silent and devoid of all of the sounds that it would have contained if any of the squad had actually been sleeping. There were no rustlings as any of them shifted in their sleep, no steady snores, and no incoherent mumbling from talkative dreamers. The silence lay heavily over Scorch like a stifling blanket, and he stared numbly at the ceiling, hoping to bore himself to sleep and doing his best to block out any and all memories of Sev that rose in his mind. His conversation with Vau had done a marvelous job of stopping Sev from haunting him in the daylight, but Scorch still had to confront insomnia at night. Oh, well, he told himself now as he did every night, that it was better insomnia than nightmares. With nightmares, there would have been the chance that he might wake up screaming, and former commandos weren't crybabies unless they happened to be members of Omega Squad.

"Fixer, Scorch, are either of you two awake?" Boss's voice was only a whisper, but it managed to pierce through the silence like an exploding grenade from the bunk below Scorch.

"I'm awake, sir," Fixer answered in a hushed tone from the lower bunk across from Boss's. If they had been back at HQ on Triple Zero before the battle of Kashyyk, Sev would have been lying on the bunk across from Scorch's above Fixer's. If Sev were here, Fixer would have been exploring some technological wonder or other that Sev would gladly have shot if given half an excuse, and the rest of the squad could have whispered to each other or not as the whim struck them. If Sev were here, things would have been normal, but now that Sev was gone, things could never be quite normal again.

At least nobody was sleeping in the bunk that should have been Sev's. If anyone slept there, it would be like they were trying to replace Sev, and no one could replace Sev. Scorch was grateful that not enough clones had deserted to necessitate that a clone be placed on that bunk. Scorch was also happy to think that it would be unlucky that a clone would show up here alone. On a whole, clones liked groups and were disconcerted by the idea of doing anything different from their brothers. That's why Scorch had abandoned Sev. He couldn't bear the idea of being different and not conforming with Boss and Fixer.

"How am I supposed to answer if I'm asleep?' Scorch asked.

"You could try showing some respect for your commanding officer for a change," grunted Boss. "Anyway, genius, you talk in your sleep."

"I don't, Sarge," Scorch argued.

"Liar," Boss said. "You always wake me up when you mutter things like 'Explode…inaudible m sound…order…inaudible u sound…crater.'"

"Well, I can't be expected to know what I am doing if I am asleep." Scorch shrugged cheerily.

"That's not a very good excuse, Scorch," Boss replied irritably.

"If it works, it is." Scorch grinned.

"Speaking of excuses, is there a reason you asked if we were awake, sir, or can I go back to trying to go to sleep now?" cut in Fixer, as serious as ever.

"The reason I asked if you two were awake was because I wanted to talk to you." Boss sounded hesitant, and Scorch couldn't help but frown. In all the years that he had known Boss, he could count on one hand the number of times that he had encountered an uncertain Boss. The circumstances that created an uneasy Boss were never particularly pleasant ones that beings the galaxy over would be lining up to experience. "Excuses actually provide a decent opening for what I want to talk about."

"Are you trying to be as cryptic as a Jedi now that they have all been shot?" Scorch asked, making it sound like a joke, because, as Vau had reminded him, it was his job to lighten the burdens the squad carried with his humor. If he could transform whatever horrible things happened to them into a joke, then nothing could truly harm them and they could remain sane. It was his job to boost Fixer's and Boss's morale, and Scorch, like every other clone, really wanted to do his duty. Thus, humor was really the only thing he took seriously.

"I'll be less cryptic, then, if that's what you want," answered Boss, and Scorch could picture his face settling into a taut, grim mask. "I want to talk about Kashyyyk."

"I don't." Scorch felt himself shivering even though he had felt too hot a moment before. Something was definitely wrong with the room's ventilation. In the morning, Fixer would have to mend whatever it was. "Let's not talk about that. That wasn't the high point in our careers. Let's talk about the fun we had with the Trandoshans on the Prosecutor, how we generously saved Omega's shebs when they were running out of oxygen, how we stomped out a whole terrorist cell on Triple Zero, and how we prepared the battlefield as only we can on Skuumaa. It will be much more uplifting."

"I want to talk about Kashyyyk because that was our only real failure," explained Boss, and now Scorch could envision his lips thinning. "Actually, when it comes down to it, it was my failure, and you two should know that. I made the decision to leave him, and I take full responsibility for that."

"It's more my fault than yours, sir," Fixer contradicted him. "I was the one who advised you to abandon Sev. I could have sided with Scorch, but I did not."

"I could have listened to Scorch and not you," Boss responded. "You would have gone along with whatever I decided because I am in charge."

"You two make me sound so innocent, but I'm not." Scorch emitted a laugh that contained no true amusement. "I abandoned Sev as much as either of you did. I could have fought harder, but I did not. I could have disobeyed, but I did not. I left him, too."

"The blame still rests with me, because I was in command, and I made the ultimate decision," insisted Boss.

"We can play the blame game all night, but that isn't going to make any of us feel better, since, once it's over, we're all still going to think that we are at fault for what happened," Scorch pointed out. "We should play sabaac, instead. That way one of us can win and feel good while the other two of us curse loud enough to wake the whole house."

"Maybe we're approaching this in the wrong fashion," muttered Fixer, inserting himself into the conversation once more. "Do you remember that training exercise when we were five when Vau piled us all up with backpacks so heavy even we couldn't carry them?"

"No, I try to block traumatic events like that from my very consciousness," Scorch answered after a moment's reflection.

"Well, I do. I remember how we all stumbled around for awhile and ended up falling down into the simulated mud within minutes. Vau barely needed to waste a shot on us. Then, I remember how he told us afterward that we were a bunch of di'kuts. He said we should have figured out by now that we were placed in a squad for a reason, and that reason was because we weren't meant to operate alone, but as a group. He said that if we had worked together and made a sled from the trees, we would have been able to carry the backpacks. What if we're making the same mistake now? What if this guilt isn't something we're meant to lug about on our own?"

"Maybe you're right," Boss said after a long pause in which Scorch thought that neither he nor either of his brothers breathed. "Perhaps we're meant to share the blame for what happened among the three of us. Maybe if we do that, we'll find a way to move on like Sev would have wanted us to do."

"Speaking of moving on, are you two planning on taking the antidote that Skirata is having Uthan concoct to cure our premature exit from this world?" Fixer, who seemed to be in a rare talkative mood, inquired.

"Yeah." Scorch shrugged. "I don't know what to do with myself during many afternoons, but I'll extend my lifespan, because being alive is more fun than being dead."

"I feel myself slowing down already, and I don't want to die yet," added Boss. "I think I'll take Uthan's magic medicine as well."

"With all due respect, sir, you already spend much of your days roaming around looking bored," Fixer pointed out. "What are you going to do with a suddenly elongated lifespan?"

"Maybe we can all become mercenaries," suggested Boss. "We have the skills for it, and if we wear armor, nobody has to know that we are deserters."

"We should become mercenaries," Scorch commented. "After all, we are Mandalorians when it comes down to it, and Mandalorians become bounty hunters in the same way that intestinal parasites become lawyers and businessmen."

"But if we use Skirata's cure, then it will be easier for other people to learn about it and use it to create soldiers like us who have to serve for twice as long," Fixer protested. "Is that fair to them?"

"It's hard enough being responsible for ourselves," answered Scorch. "Let's not take responsibility for what every chakaar in the galaxy does. It will only result in our biting off all our nails."

"Fixer, Skirata would use the cure with Omega and his Nulls anyway," Boss reminded him. "Us using it too hardly matters."

"It still seems like we are tampering with the natural order of things," murmured Fixer.

"If you tinkered around with explosives more often, you would see how awesome disorder can be," Scorch informed him.

"You don't have to accept Uthan's cure if you don't want to," Boss told Fixer. "I wish you would, though. I don't want to lose another man if I can help it."

"Sir, I promise that if you two accept the cure, then I will," announced Fixer, all seriousness. "I have learned that abandoning my brothers is the last thing that I want to do."


End file.
